Won't go! What d'you mean?" Cullingworth sat with his mouth open and
his knife and fork sticking up. "What d'you mean, you brat? What are you
boggling about?"

"It's his bill, sir," said the frightened boy.

Cullingworth's face grew dusky, and the veins began to swell on his
forehead.

"His bill, eh! Look here!" He took his watch out and laid it on the
table. "It's two minutes to eight. At eight I'm coming out, and if I
find him there I'll strew the street with him. Tell him I'll shred him
over the parish. He has two minutes to save his life in, and one of them
is nearly gone."

The boy bolted from the room, and in an instant afterwards we heard
the bang of the front door, with a clatter of steps down the stairs.
Cullingworth lay back in his chair and roared until the tears shone
on his eyelashes, while his wife quivered all over with sympathetic
merriment.

"I'll drive him mad," Cullingworth sobbed at last. "He's a nervous,
chicken-livered kind of man; and when I look at him he turns the colour
of putty. If I pass his shop I usually just drop in and stand and look
at him. I never speak, but just look. It paralyses him. Sometimes the
shop is full of people; but it is just the same."

"Who is he, then?" I asked.

"He's my corn merchant. I was saying that I paid my tradesmen as I go,
but he is the only exception. He has done me once or twice, you see;
and so I try to take it out of him. By the way, you might send him down
twenty pounds to-morrow, Hetty. It's time for an instalment."

What a gossip you will think me, Bertie? But when I begin, my memory
brings everything back so clearly, and I write on and on almost
unconsciously. Besides, this fellow is such a mixture of qualities, that
I could never give you any idea of him by myself; and so I just try to
repeat to you what he says, and what he does, so that you may build up
your own picture of the man. I know that he has always interested you,
and that he does so more now than ever since our fates have drawn us
together again.

After dinner, we went into the back room, which was the most
extraordinary contrast to the front one, having only a plain deal table,
and half-a-dozen kitchen chairs scattered about on a linoleum floor.
At one end was an electric battery and a big magnet. At the other, a
packing case with several pistols and a litter of cartridges upon it. A
rook rifle was leaning tip against it, and looking round I saw that the
walls were all pocked w